Making the Cut

One of the hardest parts about producing a short film is having to scrap work that you absolutely LOVE because it doesn’t make the overall piece better. There are always a handful of gems that get shut out for one reason or another and in this short we had to remove four puppets that Alex spent about 2-3 weeks building! We were convinced that Bush and Cheney would appear during the line ‘inherited wars’ and that Kim Jung Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would appear during ‘nuclear threats’ but once we saw the puppeteers perform their freestyle dance, there was no way we could NOT use that footage. Alex’s sculptures were absolutely GORGEOUS, but dancing puppets were just plain funny. When we broke the news to him he didn’t even bat an eye. He simply said, “Hey, whatever works best for the short.” So… hat’s off to Alex and here are his almost completed puppets in all their glory…

A slightly easier scene to cut (but one we were still sad to leave) was NY governor candidate Jimmy ‘The Rent’s Too Damn High’ McMillan. We were all fighting over who would get to build the Jimmy puppet but when Gregg dressed up as him for Halloween and no one knew who the heck he was Jimmy McMillian was no more…